Valuable chains made of valuable material such as gold or silver being displayed for sale to customers are best designed for maximum visual appeal when the chains can be handled by customers. Because the chains are so valuable, however, experience has shown that on occasion a chain is unreeled from a spool and stolen. A spooled chain display that can be touched by a customer while at the same time being pilfer proof in the sense that the customer touching the chains cannot unspool any of the chains in the display can be very advantageous for a retailer.